Tag Archives: Boy Scouts

Eagle Scout Court of Honor

Posted on by
Reply

Becoming an Eagle Scout is the pinnacle of a Boy Scout’s career and only a small fraction of those who start out in Boy Scouts achieve it. We are the proud parents of an Eagle Scout whose Court of Honor was held on October 22.
But, first, an aside. The Court of Honor is the ceremony honoring an Eagle Scout’s achievement, but, first, the Eagle Scout-to be must pass a Board of Review in order to obtain the rank of Eagle Scout. Jim has been the primary mover-and-shaker in Marcus’s Boy Scout journey. He takes Marcus to most Boy Scout meetings, accompanied him on campouts when he was young, and encouraged/cajoled/ordered Marcus to stay with Scouts when he wavered, as all boys do. We were in Paris when Marcus had his Board of Review, and woke up in the middle of the night (3:17 am to be exact) to a 20 second voicemail on *my* phone. The first 15 seconds were in Chinese when Marcus told me he passed his Board of Review and that he knew it was late but to please call him back. The last 5 seconds were in English when he said, “Daddy, if you’re listening to this, I made Eagle.” I’m so glad our son gave credit where credit was due. 🙂
For Troop #128, this was only the 3rd or 4th Court of Honor where *four* Eagle Scouts were honored. And Marcus showed an uncommon maturity and internal validation system during and after the ceremony. As part of a Court of Honor, an adult—most commonly the Eagle Scout counselor—says a few words about the Eagle Scout and his accomplishments. Due to a miscommunication, no one spoke about Marcus although the other 3 Eagle Scouts were lauded. Marcus’s reaction on what happened: “I was confused, but it wasn’t important. My family and friends know what I did. And I’m an Eagle Scout—that’s all that matters.”
I do not think there are many 17 year olds, after going through all that work and all that effort, who wouldn’t have been disappointed that they weren’t praised for their accomplishments. And so we are extremely proud of our son, who already knows to look inside himself for the true worth of his actions.

Eagle Scout Court of Honor

officially deemed an Eagle Scout!

with Congresswoman Barbara Comstock

Court of Honor speech

Troop #128 Eagle Scouts!

Eagle Project: Part I

Posted on by
Reply

On a fortuitously cloudy but not rainy Sunday (November 5), Marcus and about a dozen of his friends embarked on Part I of his Eagle Scout project, which was to build a shed and water catchment system for a church in Purcellville, Virginia. The project took the better part of the day, but by the end of the day, both projects were completed.
There were certain conclusions to be drawn from this part of the project:
1. Boys, whatever the age, mostly eat like velociraptors.
2. Pizza is always acceptable nourishment to the aforementioned velociraptors.
3. Young boys (below the age of 12) and power tools are a combustible combination (fortunately, there were no trips to the emergency room—my only goal).
4. Boy Scouts are more punctual than school friends (unless school friends are also Boy Scouts).

Nonetheless, Part I was a great success!

project management

the new shed!

water catchment system

shingling the roof

all done!!

Note: the full Eagle Project is on behalf of the Saint Isidore Project (www.isidoreproject.org). Part II is to assemble garden-in-a-box kits and convince various houses of worship that their lovely country club lawns might be put to better use by creating a garden to grow food for the poor.  Stay tuned!

Family Life Merit Badge (aka Cleaning the Basement)

Posted on by
1

Our fourteen year old son is in Boy Scouts and, as part of the process, has to earn merit badges in a variety of subjects along the way.  (For those of you familiar with Boy Scouts, he is currently a Life Scout with only his camping merit badge and his Eagle Scout project standing in the way of his becoming an Eagle Scout.)

As part of getting the Family Life merit badge, he undertook to clean up the basement.  I do think that a comparison of cleaning up our basement to the Labors of Hercules is not without merit.  Nonetheless, he persevered over an entire Saturday and managed to get it done.

This event is definitely worth celebrating in the family chronicles.  As a result, his proud father put together a slideshow of before and after photos of our basement.  And, naturally, in keeping with the family’s current obsession, set the slideshow to the soundtrack of “Hamilton” (which was nominated for a record 16 Tony awards, but I digress).